While the left-driven ecosystem continues to question and show disbelief towards thousands of incidents of religious conversion, another dreadful old case has come to the fore in which Vishal, a student from Maharashtra’s Pune city was forced to convert his religion to Islam and was trapped in an espionage case, following which he had to serve seven crucial years of his life in jail.
The saga began in the year 2005 when a 25-year-old Pune student started conversing with a Pakistani girl he met online, and the two fell in love. Two years later, the romance that had started with online conversations, countless phone calls, two trips to Pakistan, and a vow to convert to Islam came to an end when Vishal was arrested in an espionage case and given a seven-year prison term.
Due to the case’s connections to an ISI agent and two Pakistan High Commission employees, the Pune police even is said to have requested assistance from the Ministry of External Affairs. It’s been 16 years and the 2007 espionage case records still list the suspected ISI spy Sallahudin Sha and his daughter Fatima Sha as being ‘wanted’.
Vishal, who came from a middle-class Jharkhand family, moved to Pune in 2004 to pursue his academics. When he was taken into custody, he was enrolled in a Hadapsar college. Vishal spoke with a girl over a Yahoo chat in 2005. She introduced herself as “Fatima Sallahudin Sha,” a local of Pakistan’s Karachi. He used to come across Fatima in an internet café where they would chat for hours on end, according to the police. Both parties disclosed information about their families, and Fatima claimed that Sallahudin was a former Pakistani Army officer, police documents reveal.
Vishal proposed marriage after falling in love, and Fatima supposedly consented. Afterwards, she gave him a Pakistani mobile phone number, according to the reports. The proprietor of the nearby STD booth told the police that Vishal contacted her on this number and ran up to charges of Rs 1.5 lakh. The cops said that he just paid Rs 40,000.
Additionally, Vishal telephoned Fatima’s parents in Pakistan. After first rejecting his marriage proposal, they ultimately consented, but only if he agreed to convert his religion to Islam. Vishal was then supposedly invited to Pakistan by Fatima and her father. He was enticed by her father by the promise of a permanent home and a company in London following their nuptials.
Vishal attempted to obtain a visa for Pakistan, but his application was turned down. This is when Sallahudin allegedly provided him Syed S Hussain Tirmizi’s phone number, an employee of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi, according to the police. In this lawsuit, Tirmizi and Javed alias Abdul Latif, another employee of the Pakistan High Commission, were listed as defendants and conspirators.
Vishal reportedly got in touch with Tirmizi and handed over his papers. He received cash from Fatima and her father at this time while residing in a lodge in the Paharganj area of Delhi. Details of nine such financial transactions between August and December 2006 were presented in court by the Pune police.
According to the authorities, Tirmizi and Latif made arrangements for Vishal’s visa to Pakistan. Vishal visited Pakistan twice, the inquiry found, once for four days on October 14, 2006, and once for more than two weeks on January 23, 2007.
“We received information that Vishal had returned from Pakistan and was having some secret documents and CDs containing photographs of military establishments and religious places in and around Pune. We had information that he was planning to hand over the crucial information to someone in Pakistan so we started surveillance,” said Bhanupratap Barge, the then Crime Branch, Pune Police. Barge was an investigating officer in this case and he retired as an assistant commissioner of police.
On April 8, 2007, Vishal was arrested by the Pune City Police on suspicion of espionage. The National Defence Academy (NDA), Bombay Engineering Group (BEG), Southern Command, and other Army institutions in Pune are among the buildings that the police are said to have found on CDs from him during searches. The RSS headquarters in Pune’s Motibaug and other critical areas are also seen in the photos, according to the police.
In addition to other items, the police claimed to have found photocopies of Army officials’ phone numbers, pictures of Fatima, and an envelope with Sallahudin Sha’s address on it.
As an assistant police inspector at Crime Branch at the time, Ragunath Phuge (now retired) filed a first information report (FIR) against Vishal at the Deccan police station in Pune under Section 120b (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sections of the Official Secrets Act (OSA).
Vishal recounted meeting Fatima and her family, his stay at their Karachi home, their shopping excursions, hotel and garden visits, etc. in his testimony to the police. According to the police investigation, based on a confession made by Vishal, Sallahudin is accused of taking him to a hidden place where he received military instruction for “terrorism activities” during his second trip to Pakistan.
He claims that Sallahudin requested him to research Army facilities and religious sites in Pune, as well as to become familiar with Islamic religious customs.
Vishal reportedly started gathering information after arriving in Pune. He communicated with Tirmizi and reportedly received a CD from a man named as Hafiji; the police were unable to learn more about him, but he was also listed as a wanted suspect.
According to the police investigation, Vishal visited NDA twice. The information taken from him, according to Indian Army officials, was of a “classified nature.” Vishal was arrested under the OSA on suspicion of preparing to convey this information to Pakistan, according to the police.
The police looked into other email accounts Vishal is said to have used to contact Fatima after his imprisonment. The investigation also showed that Vishal had made contact with Muslim preachers in Malegaon and Pune to become an Islamist. Even a Muslim cleric from Pune who was interviewed by the police and whose statement was recorded spoke to Sallahudin on the phone. Sallahudin reportedly informed the imam that Vishal had already embraced Islam and been given the name ‘Bilal’. The name ‘Bilal’ was mentioned in an email that the police turned over to the court.
In order to investigate the participation of Pakistan High Commission employees, the Pune city police also requested assistance from MEA officials, however according to Vienna Convention regulations, no action could be done against them, the police said.
A Pune court received a chargesheet against Vishal from the police in July 2007. He refuted the prosecution’s claims and said that the sole reason he visited Pakistan twice was for a love affair. However, the court noted that Vishal was in the “thick of conspiracy” according to the evidence.
On March 29, 2011, Vishal was found guilty of violating sections 120 b of the IPC and sections of the OSA by the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate Suchitra Ghodke, and he was sentenced to seven years in jail. He was reportedly freed after serving his time in Yerwada Central Prison.
“This was a high-profile case. During the investigation, we coordinated with central agencies and successfully exposed not only Pakistan’s ISI but also how officials in Pakistan High Commission, Delhi, were carrying out anti-India activities,” recalled Barge to the Indian Express.
